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THE PULSE OF ENTERTAINMENT: Al B. Sure comes back home to singing with his Hidden Beach Recordings' CD release
Also, The NAACP celebrates 100 years with a reception at Judge Greg Mathis home
Al B. Sure comes back home to singing with his new Hidden Beach Recordings CD release
*I recently witnessed a master performer do his thing at the Laugh Factory in Long Beach, that master was Al B. Sure. I totally enjoyed seeing him work the room, interact and dance with the audience, and let's not forget hitting those high notes that only Al B. Sure can do. After 15 years out of the recording lime-light “New Jack Swings' most popular romantic singer” releases a new album, “Honey I'm Home,” on Hidden Beach Recordings.
“As a child I tried to emulate Smokie Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye,” singer/songwriter/producer Al B. Sure said to me recently when I asked him where his tenor voice came from (because his speaking voice is a bit deep). “(But) I had a deep voice as a child.”
Al said with this new CD release, “Honey I'm home,” he hopes to take us back to the times of Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones.
“I think it was the pressure from people at airports...the basketball courts and at business meetings saying, 'when' (are you coming out with a CD), it's been too long,” Sure said when asked what made him decide to record an album after 15 years. “I wasn't sure where to find home.”
Al didn't want his CD to be “in the trendy zone” but he wanted to maintain his sound. He did just that with the help of long time production partner Kyle West and Michael Mani.
Sure started in the music business in 1988 with the debut of the multi-platinum selling album “In Effect Mode.” That album produced his signature songs “Nite and Day” and “Off on your own (Girl),” both released as singles. He has a total of 15 singles that reached the top of the Billboard charts. Al received Grammy and American Music Award nominations. He won an American Music Award for Best New Artist, a Soul Train Music Award for Best New Artist and more than 35 ASCAP Awards for his songwriting and production skills.
“As an artist I try to be responsible,” Sure pointed out. “I'm about being a true artist, songwriter and composer...I take my lessons from Quincy Jones.”
Well Quincy would be proud of this project. “Honey I'm home” is trendy yet takes you “home” to the times of yesterday when hearing that Al B. Sure tenor voice put a smile on your face as you were serenaded. It's a 12 song CD and Al B. Sure takes you through a journey of songs and sounds. On “I Love it (Papi Aye Aye Aye),” the first single, it features the world renowned cellist Tina Guo. The single was produced by Al B. an Kyle West.
Aside from that one my favorites also include “All I wanna be” and the cover song “Lady in my life,” where he truly proves that he is a master tenor.
NAACP celebrates 100 years with a reception in honor of Bond and Jealous at Judge Greg Mathis' home
“One of the things...is cause of the black community,” Judge Greg Mathis told me about why he welcomed the reception in his beautiful white and gold decorated home in the heart of Beverly Hills. “...And the 100th anniversary of the largest civil rights organization. To awaken a sleeping giant that opened the doors of opportunity that I enjoy.”
The NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of Colored People) began in 1909 as a result of the 1908 race riots in Springfield, Illinois at the home of Abraham Lincoln. A mob of the towns so-called “best citizens” raged for two days killing and wounding any black person they could find. In an article by William English Walling titled “Race War in the North” he said the spirit of Lincoln and Love-joy needed to be revived because he felt that “the Negro” should be treated with equality.
Mary White Ovington who was studying “the Negro” and living with them read the article and was moved, because she felt the same. She contacted Walling and they met in New York along with Dr. Henry Moskowitz and at that meeting on February 12, 1909 the NAACP was born. Other founding members that “National Negro Committee” meeting included W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells-Barnett and Oswald Garrison Villiard.
That next year they immediately started fighting legal battles of civil injustice. They would go on to do such things as place ads in the media about the facts of lynching; protest laws that discriminated against people of color; pressure President Harry Truman to sign an Executive Order banning discrimination in interstate train and bus facilities, support member Thurgood Marshall in winning the legal battle Brown vs. the Board of Education, and supported member Rosa Parks when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat.
Today the NAACP has Julian Bond as chairman of the board and Benjamin Jealous as president/CEO. With their leadership the organization has begun investigating and lobbying the discrimination and injustice in our credit loan system and staying on-top of what is happening with the stimulus money.
The NAACP reception at Judge Greg and Linda Mathis' home was in their honor and celebrities came to mingle with the hard-hitting members of the organization,celebrities such as Lisa Raye, Cedric the Entertainer, legends Don Cornelius and Thelma Houston, Bill Duke, ER's Eric La Salle, Duane Martin and Rachel True (Half and Half).
To learn more about the NAACP log onto www.NAACP.org.
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